The Cap'm
by Birdhouse in your Soul
Summary: This was a bit like babysitting a five-year-old and a bit like supervising a drunk man and a bit less pleasant than either. Songfic. NaotoXBadou.


**A/N:** Dude, DUDE. I absolutely and unreservedly LOVE They Might be Giants. Especially this song. It it SO Badou. XD I usually abhor trying to write songfics (this is my first actual one...) but this one just seemed... natural. The song is, of course, _The Cap'm_.

As for the pairing, I just like these two together. Everyone writes HaineXBadou anyway and it's just sooo overdone. I don't care how close to canon it is.

Anyway, enjoy!

* * *

**THE CAP'M**

"Naoto! Beignets!"

"We just ate, Badou."

"But they're so good! Haven't you ever had one before?"

Naoto sighed. She'd spent the afternoon with Badou, follwing after him while he ran about like a chicken with its head cut off. Haine had said that it would do all of them good to get out and walk around, to just relax for a day, to get rid of that "stir crazy" feeling, as he referred to it, but somewhere along the way when they'd begun their stroll through the city, Nil had seen a pet shop and dragged him into it. Badou had kept on going ahead, and, unsure who to follow, Naoto went after him.

She was wishing she hadn't now, after spending the past_ three hours _with him.

_**Do you think there's somebody out there**_

_**Someone else who's better than the one you've got?**_

_**Well there's not**_

_**There's not**_

This was a bit like babysitting a five-year-old and a bit like supervising a drunk man and a bit less pleasant than either. But she couldn't very well just leave him on his own, just as she couldn't leave a five-year-old or a drunk man. And besides that, it just seemed... rude.

Naoto was many things, but she was not rude.

She started past the beignet stand, scuffing her feet through the snow. "We spent most of our money on that gumbo you were so convinced you would die without."

"You ate it too, Naoto. You can't tell me it wasn't delicious."

Well, he had her there. She couldn't.

She deflected his remark. "We don't need the beignets. We should probably be trying to find Haine and Nil."

Badou relented and followed after her, pouting. He flicked a strand of red hair out of his face, then reached into his coat pocket and lit himself a cigarette, taking a long drag from it and then just letting it dangle from his mouth. "They're probably back at the house watching old movies again." Badou, more often than not, ended up in tears at the end of many of them. He was such a sap when it came to cartoons about cute baby animals.

"Maybe. It's getting cold. That's sort of where I want to be too."

"_Meh_." Naoto first took this as an indication that he was going to shut up. But then, "Oh, _look_!"

Now she was getting irritated. She turned around. "What is it, Badou?"

_**When I talk you keep looking away from me**_

_**'Cause you probably think that I'm high on pot**_

_**But I'm not**_

_**I'm not**_

"A costume shop!" He pointed, grinning around the cig in his mouth. "Let's go in! Please?"

She sighed. If she said no, he'd be whining about it for the rest of the forseeable future. She'd denied him beignets already. Denying this would be _unforgivable_ in Badou's world.

Besides, at least if they went it they'd be out of the cold.

"...Fine."

He did a fist pump, looking even more immature than he actually was. "Yeah!"

The inside was crammed and crowded, making Naoto feel claustrophbic and suffocated. Precariously perched racks of outrageously colored clothing tipped into the aisles, making it difficult to walk through. Badou was already rifling through racks, coming dangerously close to toppling them a few times.

She slowly looked through them herself, thinking what she might actually wear and what no one in their right mind would ever wear, ever. Like a hot pink jumpsuit that covered ankle to collarbone and was so bright it hurt to look at.

She found a straight black dress and thought it was something she could see herself in. Then again, it was too... Simple. Too depressing. She put it back.

She happened upon another dress, a deep maroon one made of velvet with black silk flowers along the neck. She liked this one. Maybe if she just tried it on quickly...

Badou was nowhere to be seen by this point. Naoto ducked behind a curtain between two walls that served as a dressing room and changed into the long dress. There were no mirrors, so she couldn't see what it looked like, but she could tell just by feel that it was far more revealing than she'd originally thought upon seeing it. It was backless down to just above her hips, and the neckline could only be described as... plunging.

She felt embarassed just wearing it, but Badou was likely going to get quite a kick out of it, so she decided she'd show him. He teased her all hours of the day about being a prude, so here was a chance to prove him wrong.

She cautiously stepped out from behind the curtain, looking to see where he was. She squeezed her way past a particularly overloaded clothes rack and went down another aisle to find him.

"_Hey_, not bad. I kinda like this getup," his voice sounded behind her. She felt like she should have been even more embarassed, especially with the suggestive tongue-clicking he added after the statement, but she wasn't - probably because of what he was wearing.

It was a pirate costume. The coat was floor-length, an inch or two too long for him, a dark pine green color with black cuffs and collar embellished with threads of red and gold.

_**Look me over, I'm the Cap'm **_

_**You say it's such a joke **_

_**But I don't see you laughing **_

_**People seem to think you can't be called the Cap'm **_

_**Unless you drive a boat **_

_**Well, I don't **_

_**I don't **_

"Well? What do you think of mine?" He did a quick spin. "I've got the eyepatch already. I figured this would go well with it. But wait - one more thing." He put on the heavy black hat, lopsided, grinning like a fool. "Eh? Eh? Pretty good, am I right?"

She offered the slightest smile, half of exasperation. "Yes, Badou. Looks great."

_**Did you say what I think you just said **_

_**My hat looks good on me? **_

_**I agree, I agree **_

He looked smugly satisfied. "You should dress like that more often, too."

Now she did actually blush. "Sh-shut up."

He laughed at her, loudly, but the walls of clothes muffled his voice a bit. "It's a compliment! Jeez..."

She rolled her eyes and stalked back off to the dressing room to change back into her own clothes.

The afternoon, in retrospect, hadn't actually been that bad. If they'd stayed with Haine and Nil there would have been a sullen and silent mood cast over the whole group, and Haine certainly never would have agreed to come in here. They probably wouldn't have stopped in at the little corner restaurant for a hot bowl of gumbo. And...she certainly wouldn't have gotten the opportunity to hear a snippet of what, perhaps, Badou _really_ thought of her.

_**Sit beside me at the helm **_

_**Yeah, this is what I call the helm **_

_**And this button here is the fast-forward button **_

He'd taken off the pirate outfit when she found him again. He looked a little disappointed, like he'd had to abandon a grand fantasy and come back to the real world.

"You ready to go?"

Naoto nodded. "We can go back home and have some hot chocolate and join Haine and Nil watching those movies they love so much for whatever reason."

"Yeah."

They were ready to step out, but Naoto caught Badou's arm. "Badou?"

He turned to look at her. "What?"

"...I'll buy you the hat."

His face lit up, like he'd just been offered a million bucks. "Really?"

She nodded.

When they exited the shop again, Badou looked happy as could be, wearing the pirate hat proudly, and all the way home he was practically dancing down the street and yelling, "Look out, world, here comes the _cap'm_!"

Naoto just shook her head and sighed. Maybe she shouldn't have bought the hat.

_**Did you say what I think you just said **_

_**My hat looks good on me? **_

_**I agree, I agree **_

Then again, she couldn't bring herself to regret it.

* * *

**Quick end note:** Uh, I saw somewhere that _Dogs_ takes place in New Orleans, which explains my references to Cajun food like beignets, fried pastries served dusted with powdered sugar, and gumbo, soup made with roux, which is essentially burned flour (way more delicious than it sounds), and sausage, chicken, or bits of seafood. New Orleans cannot actually be considered Cajun territory but it's nearby, so I went with it. They eat the food there, anyway.

I am, in fact, a natural-born Cajun coonass. We just moved away when I was little, before I developed the accent. XD

And believe it or not, our drama department at school owns the aforementioned hot pink jumpsuit. I've worn it before. It's **awesome**.


End file.
